How to Play Terraforming Mars

Terraforming Mars puts you in charge of a corporation, centuries from now, paid to make Mars livable. Everyone works on the same planet. You warm it, fill its oceans, and thicken its air, and every step earns you rating, income, and points. Meanwhile your project cards grow your company into an engine. When Mars is finished, the game ends.

This lesson covers the standard game from the current FryxGames rulebook: no Corporate Era cards, no draft, no expansions.

Prefer to watch first? Watch It Played teaches the rules on video in its Terraforming Mars How To Play video. Watch it, then come back here for the rules in writing and the rest of the course.

What are you trying to do?

Mars has three global parameters, and the board tracks each one:

• Temperature starts at -30 °C and rises 2 degrees per step to +8 °C.
• Oxygen starts at 0% and rises 1% per step to 14%.
• Oceans start at 0. There are 9 ocean tiles to place.

Every time you raise a parameter one step, your terraform rating (TR) rises one step too. TR is part of your income every generation, and each step is worth 1 victory point at the end.

When all three parameters reach their goals, the game ends after that generation. The most victory points wins.

How do you set up?

1. Put the board in the middle. Stack the 9 ocean tiles on their space. Put white markers on 0% oxygen and -30 °C, and the generation marker on 1 on the TR track.
2. Put the other tiles and the resource cubes where everyone can reach them.
3. Remove the Corporate Era cards, marked with a small red and white icon in the lower left corner. They make a longer game, covered in the variants and expansions lesson. Shuffle the project cards and leave room for a discard pile.
4. The player who most recently won a game of Terraforming Mars takes the first player marker.
5. Each player takes a player board and a color, marks 1 production on all six tracks, and puts a marker on 20 on the TR track.
6. New players each take a Beginner Corporation: 42 M€ (megacredits, the money) and 10 project cards, free.
7. Everyone else gets 2 corporations and 10 project cards. Pick one corporation, then decide which cards to keep at 3 M€ each. Unkept cards go face down on the discard pile; the other corporation goes back in the box.
8. In player order, reveal your corporation, take its starting money and resources, and pay for the cards you kept.

Generation 1 starts with the action phase, since setup did the rest.

What happens in a generation?

A round is called a generation, and it has four phases:

1. Player order. The first player marker moves one seat clockwise, and the generation marker moves up 1.
2. Research. Everyone draws 4 cards and buys any of them for 3 M€ each. Discard the rest. There is no hand limit.
3. Action. Players take turns until everyone has passed.
4. Production. All energy turns into heat. Then you collect M€ equal to your TR plus your M€ production, plus every other resource you produce.

What can you do on your turn?

Take 1 or 2 actions, in any combination, or pass. Once you pass, you are out until the next generation. The seven actions:

• Play a project card from your hand.
• Use a standard project printed on the board.
• Claim a milestone for 8 M€.
• Fund an award.
• Use the action on a blue card you own, once per generation.
• Turn 8 plants into a greenery tile, which raises oxygen.
• Spend 8 heat to raise the temperature one step.

The standard projects are always open to everyone:

How do you play a project card?

First, meet the card’s requirement, if it has one. Some need a parameter high enough, others only work while it is still low. It only matters when you play the card.

Then pay the cost. Steel pays 2 M€ each toward cards with a building tag. Titanium pays 3 M€ each toward cards with a space tag. Then do what the card says.

Cards come in three colors. Green cards do their work once, then sit in a stack with their tags showing. Blue cards stay active, with an ongoing effect or an action. Red cards are events: play them, then turn them face down. Our explainer on the tableau covers why your row of played cards matters.

How do tiles work?

When you place a tile, take any bonus printed on its space. You also get 2 M€ for every ocean next to it.

Milestones and awards

There are 5 milestones, each a goal such as owning 3 cities. Meet one and claim it for 8 M€ to score 5 VP later. Only 3 can be claimed in the whole game.

There are 5 awards, such as most heat. Funding one costs 8 M€, then 14, then 20, and only 3 get funded. At the end, the leader in each funded award scores 5 VP and second place scores 2, no matter who paid. In a two-player game, second place scores nothing.

How does the game end?

When the last of the three parameters hits its goal, play out the rest of that generation, including production. Then everyone may turn plants into greenery one last time, in player order. Then score:

• TR: 1 VP per step.
• Awards and milestones.
• The map: 1 VP per greenery you own, plus 1 VP for each greenery, anyone’s, next to each of your cities.
• Cards: the VPs printed on your played cards, events included.

Most points wins. A tie goes to the player with the most M€.